AMC Rockaway Inner 6/Outer 6

301 Mount Hope Avenue,

Rockaway,
NJ07866

Sad news…http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20100311/UPDATES01/100311047/1005/NEWS01/Acme+to+close+its+Rockaway+Township+supermarket+in+April
This has been around as long as the old theaters themselves. Maybe AMC could build more theaters there?

btw, the space where FYE is will become retail again as the music/video/game store will close alongside its sister store Saturday matinee. Maybe AMC could build a discount theater inside the mall showing older movies ala the Route 4 Triplex? Only time will tell.

BTW, what were the Twilight shows? I think they were late night showings of movies for a discount, which AMC profited from. They should bring it back so that audiences can fill the seats at the AMC in Rockaway.

Not too far from where this theater (now Best Buy) stands, a small plane landed at the parking lot between JC Penney and Toys R Us, and thankfully the pilot survived. The parking lots near the mall and stores have been proven to be quite popular for emergency plane landings, as Morristown and Lincoln Park airports are close by.

During its period, what movie was the longest running and most popular? I think it would be the Star Wars movies, since the first one came out long before the AMC Rockaway Inner 6 opened on Labor Day of 1977, the same weekend that the mall opened. The Rockaway Outer 6 opened in Feburary of 1981, a few months before the first Indiana Jones movie came out. The Inner theaters closed in 1998 when Armageddon came out, then the Outers closed in 2002 when Spider-Man came out.

thanks for the photo links, greg. Which theater was better, the old Rockaway 12 or the new Rockaway 16? I think the newer one was great and that moviegoers would just have one choice to go see a movie rather than go in or out of the mall to see it.

after the outer closed, several retailers in that same building have come and gone, while a few, such as acme, have survived since the outer’s opening in 1981. the doors that were near the entrance had the gold amc logo in the middle of the doors as well as a changeable display that was small but easy to read. inside the lobby, there were more arcade machines than the current one, and the concession stand was tiny.

Had the AMC Outer six become a Circuit City, it would’ve suffered the same fate as others in the area (the closest is in Ledgewood). There are no traces of the original Rockaway theaters left, even during the renovation period that the mall went under this year.

Which carried on into the Rockaway 16’s stadium seats. The moviewatcher club made its debut at both theaters and so did clip, that filmstrip guy which is my favorite movie mascot alongside Popcorn Bob of GC. I didn’t join moviewatcher until my credits program was discontinued due to the acquisition by AMC the year that it closed, in 2002.

I can’t say when they were introduced into the theaters, but during my time at the Inners/Outers (95 through closing in 98 for inners, then 02 in outers) they always had cup holders built into the arm rests.

Among the movies that played at this theater was a remake of The Fury, which I found in the old showtimes section on Google News' news archive. This is from the New York times, which you have to pay money to check out which movies were playing at the theaters. Under the newspapers, the theater was just simply ROCKAWAY SIX, then ROCKAWAY TWELVE underneath the AMC name. Back then, two phone numbers would separate the theaters. When the inner six closed, so did the phone number, leaving the outer six with the phoneline for showtimes and questions. This practice would go on to its successor, which is twice the size of the outer six.

Having been to both locations where FYE and Best Buy stand where the old theaters used to be, the size of both theaters combined would be very equal to the Rockaway 16, but a bit smaller and with sloped seating. The Outers probably had larger screens than the Inners and were located within walking distance of ACME and other shops. Inside the Best Buy, there’s a Magnolia showroom that could be mistaken for one of the screening rooms at the old Rockaway theater, but with high-tech gadgets.

When the Outers were renovated in 1994, SDDS was installed alongside the Dolby systems as part of the chain’s agreement with Sony Cinema Digital Products (sic) to install the less popular sound system in all of its theaters. The movie that I saw in one of the lower number houses was presented in Dolby Digital. No wonder why AMC discontinued SDDS in 2003 in favor of Dolby Digital EX as well as PCM surround sound in its newer auditoriums. Originally, Loews wanted to make the theater in Rockaway, but residents were happy to see AMC return there when the chain merged with the struggling company ten months before the 16-plex opened.

My bad. The new indy will be shown digitally from a 35mm source for several theaters around the area as well as being shown in regular 35mm, not to mention a rare 70mm print shown only at Cannes in France for its world premiere. As for surround sound trailers, read my post over at this theater’s successor. In that one auditorium, the speakers were probably hidden around the room and they were slanted. It wasn’t as loud as the Rockaway 16, but a good theater that sold Coke, which the new one still sells. The mascot for AMC, Clip, is still alive, and nowadays I would refer to the AMC 16 as the Outer 16, if AMC wanted to build another theater where some stores might go out of business.

Speaking of Lucasfilm, was that house THX certified? At the time, the closest THX houses were in East Orange, East Hanover, and Bridgewater, at the time owned by General Cinema and Loews Cineplex, which would soon be absorbed by AMC the year that the Rockaway 12 closed and the year that construction began on its successor. FYI, all three Indy movies played at the Rockaway theaters since the year the Outer Six opened, 1981. When The Last Crusade came out, it was also playing in Morristown, AMC’s sister theater, which was the closest theater with 70mm projection. Flash forward to the upcoming Indy movie, and Indy returns to a new theater, same city, and another theater outfitted with DLP that sadly will show Indy 4 in 35mm.

“Why did AMC fail to renew the lease with the mall before the new AMC opened?”

Its my understanding that Simon property group did not want the Inners there anymore. If you’ll recall, it was a HUGE teen hangout on Fri/Sat nights. It even required a police presence to patrol the Mall entrance by the inners and Sears. This was undesirable to SIMON. In fact many “mom and pop” type stores started to leave when leases were up, immediately following Simon buying the mall in the early/mid 90s. This was by design to give the mall a higher class feel.

I believe that Simon persuaded AMC to leave the space by making the new lease’s price SO expensive, it was cost prohibitive to stay. Combine this with the fact that AMC was trying to get out of the business of the smaller theaters (focusing on free standing Megaplexes), it was the perfect recipe to get rid of the Inners.

FYI: Looking at the prior 3 posts, the Outers never had the DTS soundsystem. And only house 12 (first theater on your right when you walked in) had Dolby Digital. All houses 7-12 had Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) and analog. I remember that people from Lucasfilms actually came in and re-calibrated house 12 when Saving Private Ryan came out.

I’m fairly certain the Inners never had any digital sound but someone will have to correct me if I’m wrong. I hardly worked in the inners, as the outers was my primary “home” 1995-2002.

Well, unless the theatre is damaging the film print, the Dolby Digital works just fine. The same type of damage that can affect the Dolby Digital track will affect the DTS track as well. Sound quality is essentially equivalent between them. Regarding “surround”, if the DTS track isn’t working, the sound comes from the analog stereo Dolby tracks, the same as if the Dolby Digital track isn’t working.